Saturday, March 31, 2007

Below is the latest in a series of articles by the British author Paul Weston. It concerns the demographic future of Europe and the civilizational conflict that seems likely to occur sooner than one might have thought.

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Is European Civil War Inevitable by 2025?Part Oneby Paul Weston

If I were to tell you that within twenty years Europe could find itself engaged in a civil war so bloody it made WWII look like a bun fight, you might logically consider me a candidate for the men in white coats. You would be wrong, however. Based on the demographic evidence collated for this article, such a scenario looks not merely possible, but inevitable. In 2005 European males aged 20-40 outnumbered Muslim males of a similar age by 18:1. By 2025 this ratio could drop to a mere 2:1.

There is a common misconception that a significant erosion of our present 95% non-Muslim European majority could not possibly occur for many decades to come. People such as historian Bernard Lewis, a man whose views on Islam are held in high esteem, exacerbate this. When he made his prediction in 2004 that Europe would be Islamic by the end of the century, he did so on the basis of an overall Muslim majority.

Although such a dire prediction is shocking, it does not force us into a position where urgent steps need to be taken to alleviate such a future. We will not be here at such a distant point and can therefore presently reject as overly extreme the actions necessary to prevent it. Suppose though, that contrary to Professor Lewis’s benign view of a “democratically Islamic Europe”, Europe’s Muslims felt unwilling to wait another 80 years to expand their caliphate via the voting booth, and decided instead to take Europe through force.

In this scenario our majority is rapidly eroded due to a number of factors. In 2005, European males aged 0-19 (those capable of fighting in twenty years time) accounted for only 10% of their total population. Muslim males in the same age bracket accounted for 23% of theirs. These figures can be seen in this table and are extracted from the population pyramids compiled by the US Census Bureau 2005. (These figures represent all the countries in continental Europe, rather than EU member states alone).

In addition, the Muslim population, with its birth rate of 3.5 children per women effectively doubles its next generation, whilst the European birth rate of 1.5 children per woman ensures the next generation is 25% smaller than that of its parents.

This loss of almost one third of tomorrow’s generation necessitates massive immigration in order to prop up our welfare states, the majority of which is set to come from Muslim countries. According to the Daily Telegraph, the UN predicts Europe will need to take in 2.2 million immigrants per year, through to 2050.

Once the Muslim population climbs over 3% of the population in Western countries, native Europeans start to emigrate. The Dutch, French, Germans and British are leaving in unprecedented numbers, as noted in a Daniel Pipes article entitled “Europeans Fleeing Eurabia” which should be read in conjunction with this article.

If it is really true that up to 40% of Muslims wish to see Europe operating under Sharia Law, then the ingredients for a Europe V Islamic civil war are already in place, save for the Muslim weight of numbers; an issue being rapidly resolved. By 2025 the combination of factors mentioned above will lead to such a massive transformation in Europe’s demographic makeup that Islam may well have sufficient numbers to confront us.- - - - - - - - - -I first read Pat Buchanan’s book Death of The West three years ago, which opened my eyes to the demographic imbalance between the birth rates of native Europeans and Muslim immigrants. Although full of doom and gloom, Buchanan never ventured a particular opinion on the likelihood of a full-blown war, perhaps due to the likely backlash from Muslims in America.

This omission was partly rectified by Mark Steyn in America Alone where he does mention war as a possible scenario, but neglects to predict any particular decade. Indeed, he seems to be of the opinion that Europe will acquiesce without any resistance at all. Much as I respect Mr Steyn, I believe he is utterly wrong about this. Europeans have a history of warfare; it is unlikely we will roll over without a fight.

If a Europe V Islam civil war is a possibility, then it is clearly prudent to look at the demographics of the particular section of our population who will actually fight it: Males aged between 18-40. The ratio of these potential combatants in 2005 was 18:1 in our favour.

Now, 18:1 appears to be a number that we can cope with, albeit with a certain amount of low-level violence, but what happens when that ratio becomes 10:1 or 5:1? What would be the likely result, for example, if twenty-five European chartered accountants were confronted by five machete wielding Jihadists? The answer is fairly predictable; they would run away, to file tax returns another day.

Suppose, though, that inside each accountant’s briefcase, lurking alongside their blackberries and slide rules was a machete twice the size of the Jihadists preferred tools of trade? Same answer, they will still seek to escape. Knife fighting to the death is not on the curriculum at the East Midlands College of Accountancy and Equality, nor is it in the temperament of average European males, be they football hooligans with a penchant for fisticuffs, let alone accountants.

Conversely, when a solitary but fully armed US Marine finds himself confronted by five machete wielding Jihadists, it’s fairly safe to say he will recount the ensuing events to his comrades the following morning. The Jihadists, on the other hand, are more likely to have had an up close and personal chat with Allah, prior to salaciously indulging themselves amongst their newly acquired harem of celestial virgins.

Which brings me to the point of this article. 5:1 is no guarantee that the majority will win and 5:1 is where we will find ourselves long before 2025. When I started looking at these figures, I anticipated that the numbers necessary for a civil war — based on today’s 18:1 — would not be in place until well into the second half of this century, but I was wrong. By 2025 Europe could find itself with a potential combatant ratio of 2:1 as shown in the following extrapolated figures, with the ratio figure rounded up or down:

Year 2005 - Overall Population.

Total Population:

519 million

Non-Muslim European population:

494 Million.

Muslim population:

26 Million.

Ratio:

19:1

Year 2005 - Males Aged 20-40

Non-Muslim European population:

70.3 Million.

Muslim population:

3.9 Million 1

Ratio:

18:1

Year 2025 - Males Aged 20-40

Non-Muslim European Population:

53.4Million

Muslim Population:

5.9 Million

Ratio:

9:1

This ratio of 9:1 is not hypothetical; the people it represents are already here in our maternity wards and schools. It does not however, represent the true picture of 2025. Europe’s welfare states need a constant ratio of workers to dependents, a situation that requires immigration due to feminism’s legacy of career before children. The aforementioned UN report suggests that Europe will require 2.2 million immigrants per year, with the majority coming from Muslim countries. When these extra 28 million immigrants are taken into account the figures look as follows.

Year 2025 - Males Aged 20-40

Non-Muslim European Population:

53.4 Million

Muslim Population:

10.1 Million 2

Ratio:

5:1

As these numbers slowly change the character of Europe, many Europeans will simply pack up and leave, a situation occurring already in unprecedented numbers in countries such as Holland which has a 6% Muslim population, one of the highest in Western Europe. According to the Telegraaf an estimated 121,000 native Dutch emigrated in 2006 compared to only 30,000 in 1999. The demographic profile of these emigrants was well educated, 35-44 with good incomes. Their exodus represents a massive 4.5% of their entire age group. In one year.

In Britain, with a lower Muslim percentage but a higher incidence of terrorist activity, more than one in two wish to emigrate. So, to take an overly conservative figure of emigration amongst 20-40 year olds running at a mere 1% per annum, the figures would look as follows.

Year 2025 - Males Aged 20-40

Non-Muslim European Population:

44.6 Million

Muslim Population:

10.1 Million

Ratio:

4:1

In the event of civil war erupting, does anyone seriously think that Turkey would remain on the sidelines? By 2025 there will be some 12 millionTurkish males of fighting age. They will probably be part of the European Union well before then, but, if not, it is unlikely that the necessity of a visa will stop them from crossing the border in aid of their fellow Muslims. Should this transpire, the figures are as follows:

Year 2025 - Males Aged 20-40

Non-Muslim Population:

44.6 million

Muslim population:

22.1 million

Ratio:

2:1

Third world immigration into Europe is quite possibly an issue that politically correct Europeans will grudgingly accept; the Islamification of Europe is another matter entirely and I have seen nothing in the rhetoric or physical actions of European Muslims to suggest this is not their aim. Europeans will not allow this to happen, the politicians in suits will find themselves usurped by the men in the streets. This is why these numbers are so important.

And these numbers are probably worse than I suggest here. As events unfold, the 1% trickle of European emigration I cite could well turn into a flood. Daniel Pipes considers an exodus of the bourgeoisie to be a distinct possibility. Also, I am not a demographer3, so I have no idea how to factor in the children of the millions of immigrants predicted to arrive year on year through to 2050. In addition, the majority of immigration is likely to be made up 20-40 year olds, so the 15% figure of their total between now and 2025 could be only half of the true number.

Finally, what statistical advantage do fanatics prepared to die for their cause have over post-Christian Europeans? Unless things change, Europe will find itself with a mere 2:1 advantage within 18 years, and a 5:1 advantage within the next ten. I wouldn’t like odds of 5:1 let alone 2:1, and the argument that moderate Muslims will not become involved is specious; once a few tit for tat atrocities are committed, everybody will be forced to take sides.

The ramifications of these figures will deeply affect Europe over the next ten years, which I will discuss in part two of this article.

Note 1: The US Census population pyramids suggest countries with high birth rates — i.e. Muslim — are made up of 23% male 0-19 year olds, and 15% male 20-39 year olds. These are the percentages used for this article in the regrettable absence of census figures.

Note 2: I have taken the immigration rate as being 70% Islamic, and used 15% of this figure to arrive at the number of males aged 20-40.

Note 3: I am neither a demographer nor mathematician. Due to this, there are slight inconsistencies in the table accompanying this article, although they do not affect the overall figures. One example is my use of 20-40 year olds rather than 18-40 year olds, purely as an ease of projection. Should there be any professional demographers reading this, perhaps they could build a spreadsheet acceptable to scholars. These figures need to be in the public domain and discussed at the highest level.

The United American Committee has organized the second annual “Rally Against Islamofascism Day” in various places across the country today.

The primary location is at Ground Zero in New York City. Christine of Vigilant Freedom (a.k.a. the 910 Group) has been invited by UAC to give a speech there, and is probably delivering it right about now.

I just talked to her on the phone. She says it’s chilly and breezy, but she’s prepared to go out there and rouse the crowd. She sent me an advance copy of what she’s going to say:

I’m with Vigilant Freedom, home of the citizens network 910 Group — members in 41 states and over 20 countries, working to protect liberty, oppose sharia and counter jihad — vigilantfreedom.org. You’ve come here today because you are vigilant in defending our freedoms, and I want you to know that groups around the world are working for those same goals, against Islamist Imperialism in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas. Groups like Svenska Forum mot Islamisering in Sweden, Akte Islam and Ulfkotte’s new party in Germany, SIAD in Denmark, Liberté Vox in France — wear a blue scarf to support those resisting Islamification in France — Vlaams Blok in Belgium, in Southeast Asia Aburrahman Wahid and Nadhlatul Ulama in Indonesia, and here in the US we have our own interfaith groups working against Islamofascism, from the American Islamic Forum for Democracy to the signers of the Secular Islam Summit St. Petersburg declaration of March 5th.

Even as we meet, in London our British Vigilant Freedom Coalition is leading a rally to free the fifteen sailors and Marines kidnapped by the Iranian Republic Guard — we are putting feet on the street now. Citizens in Europe, Asia, Africa are saying: Enough! The paralysis of political correctness is slowly leaving the body politic, and we are learning that we can fight back against the Islamist attacks on our liberties that include lawsuits, anti-free speech legislation, bills to criminalize counter-terrorism like ERPA, the endless demands for supremacy of Islam over all other religions in our schools and communities. We offer equality to all, but supremacy to none.

We are awakening from this paralysis and we are resisting, a citizen’s Anti-Islamist international coalition. We are developing a credible platform of common positions to define what are our shared terms of victory over radical Islamists. Groups like the Muslim Brotherhood are global, networked, financed, distributed and organized, and they’re in it for the long term — and we who oppose them must be all those things and more to win the fight to protect all people’s liberties worldwide.

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We are building coalitions, and grassroots volunteers and leaders are joining up faster than we ever imagined — our biggest problem is handling our rate of growth . Ordinary people — without Saudi millions or UAE millions — who find in themselves the power to begin resisting Islamist pressures in their local communities and legislatures. Liberal Muslims — and they deserve our support when they speak up, because they are the first target of bullying from the Islamofascist lobby — and every other religion and political party. Organizing, tracking legislation, researching the opposition, doing the work of resistance. The world’s citizens see their liberties under attack by Islamist Imperialism. Some countries are close to being occupied by Wahhabism, and we are resisting that occupation and Islamist supremacism. We think our constitutions are just fine, thank you, without the addition of fundamentalist sharia law, much less without deferring to sharia.

Daniel Pipes’ words for the U.S. could apply to any of our countries in this international coalition: “Islam in America must be American Islam or it will not be integrated; there can be no place for an Islam in America that functions as a seditious conspiracy aimed at wiping out American values and undermining interfaith civility.”

If you awake and if you resist you will be called an Islamophobe, a racist, a bigot, a hate-monger, and that’s just the start of it. But “Islamophobe” is yesterday’s term to try to marginalize anyone who would defend the constitutions of their nations — CAIR is behind the curve, wrong on two counts. First, a phobia is an unreasoning fear, and we are eminently reasonable — it’s the Western tradition of reason, science, the enlightenment and the indivisible rights of the individual that we defend and want to share. Secondly, the world certainly fears the political ideology of Islamofascism and Islamic Imperialism and its global agenda of tyranny and terrorism, but we are beyond the paralysis of fear — we are too busy working to resist now to have time or patience for fear.

Why do CAIR and the other groups dwell so endlessly on Islamophobia? They desperately need to spread the lie that all fear them, because without the illusion that they cause fear they are powerless. Take away the bully’s ability to sow fear and you leave him, whining, alone in the playground. If we resist, the millions of Wahhabi from Saudi Arabia and the UAE invested in replacing our constitutional liberties with sharia law will turn out to be the Enron of geopolitics — petrodollars down the drain. If we resist, they get no return on their investment. As Reagan said: “Evil is powerless if the good are unafraid.”

So join UAC and vigilantfreedom.org and any other group you can find that defends our freedoms. No other issue will matter if we lose this one, for we will lose our political and civil freedoms if we are not vigilant in defending them.

Volunteer, work on legislation, become a researcher, help with administration, donate if you can — the need for funding to counter the Saudi and UAE millions is serious — give us your time if you can, your ideas, your prayers. We are all awake now, and we are all resisting. Take care, all of you — stay vigilant, and stay free.

Friday, March 30, 2007

The noted blogger Fjordman is filing this report via Gates of Vienna.For a complete Fjordman blogography, see The Fjordman Files. There is also a multi-index listing here.

On my essay about glossocracy, the government of the word, by the word and for the word, reader kepiblanc suggested that the Western culture of self-destruction should be called seppukultur, from the Japanese word “seppuku,” the ritual suicide by disembowelment which was a part of the Samurai code of conduct, more commonly known as hara-kiri. I find the word intriguing, but it isn’t entirely accurate. What modern Westerners are doing is eradicating their own culture. This concept would never have occurred to Japanese who followed bushido teachings. Those who committed seppuku did so precisely out of a deep commitment to their traditions. For good or bad, the Japanese always have been fiercely attached to their culture, which is why they have largely remained insulated to the onslaught of Western Multiculturalism.

Right-wingers can be very short-sighted when it comes to mass immigration, and even so-called “conservatives” keep parroting the “Islam is peace” mantra. And although conservatives will complain about left-wingers, at least Leftists are committed to their cause and more determined to get into positions of influence. However, it is impossible to ignore the fact that the most eager allies Muslims find in the West tend to be among the hard-Left groups. I wouldn’t be too surprised to see some of them actively side with Muslims against their own people if there ever is a genuine physical battle.

There is an aggressive anti-Western impulse in certain segments of the Western Left which is rare among right-wingers. When they break down the “oppressive” nuclear family in the West yet downplay barbaric violence in Muslim families they are being entirely consistent: Their primary goal was never about freedom, it was about destroying the West. This creates fissures between the left-wingers who actually believe their own rhetoric — and some of them do — and between those who always knew it was just a pretext for something else.

According to journalist Ian Buruma, Tariq Ramadan prefers “Islamic socialism, which is neither socialist, nor capitalist, but a third way.” The tyranny to be resisted is “the northern model of development.” Global capitalism is the ‘abode of war,’ for “when faced with neoliberal economics, the message of Islam offers no way out but resistance.” This kind of rhetoric appeals to segments of the Western Left, and Mr. Ramadan knows this.

I’m not claiming that everyone left of the political centre actively seek the destruction of Western civilization. I once belonged to the political Left myself, and I was simply naïve because I had grown up in a sheltered environment in a peaceful country. I can understand those who initially didn’t grasp the sheer magnitude of the forces at work and didn’t foresee how the tiny trickle in the beginning would turn into the vast migration deluge that is swamping the West.

What I find difficult to understand is how people can, even now, with Islamic barbarism and terror attacks spreading across the European continent, continue so stubbornly to claim that mass immigration is good and that all those claiming otherwise are “racists.” We have unfortunately an almost infinite ability to fool ourselves into believing whatever we want to believe, especially if the truth seems troublesome. Moreover, many observers can be shockingly indifferent to the sufferings of actual people as long as they are focusing on the “greater good.”

According to Russian author Vladimir Sorokin, “The word ‘people’ is unpleasant to me. The phrase ‘Soviet people’ was drummed into us from childhood on. I love concrete people, enlightened people who live conscious lives and do not simply sit there and vegetate. To love the people you have to be the general secretary of the Communist Party or an absolute dictator. The poet Josef Brodsky once said: The trees are more important to me than the forest.”

Theodore Dalrymple writes about how George Orwell, because of books such as Animal Farm and 1984, has been made into an “honorary conservative.” However, his 1938 book Homage to Catalonia about the Spanish Civil War gives a different impression of the man:

“‘Churches were wrecked and the priests driven out or killed’: the only regret that Orwell expresses is that it allowed Franco to represent himself to readers of the Daily Mail as “a patriot delivering his country from hordes of fiendish ‘Reds.’” Orwell continues: “For the first time since I had been in Barcelona I went to look at the Sagrada Familia… Unlike most of the churches in Barcelona, it was not damaged during the Revolution — it was spared because of its ‘artistic value,’ people said.. I think the Anarchists showed bad taste in not blowing it up when they had the chance.”

Orwell states that “In six months in Spain I saw only two undamaged churches.” According to Dalrymple, George Orwell, a self-proclaimed “democratic socialist,” was a “fundamentally decent man blinded by abstract ideas: He never really asked the right question, which is not whether there could be democratic socialism (clearly there can be, in the one-man-one-vote sense), but whether socialism is compatible with freedom.”

Many of us associate the Spanish Civil War with Pablo Picasso’s painting Guernica, and were taught that the “bad guys” won the war. But if the “good guys” were killing priests and blowing up churches, maybe the truth is slightly more complicated than that. Dalrymple points out that Orwell’s anti-totalitarian books did far more good than Homage to Catalonia did damage. 1984 circulated clandestinely in the Communist dictatorship of Romania, where people were amazed to see how a Western writer could so accurately portray their own reality. However, Orwell should also serve as a chilling reminder of how even good men can become blinded by ideology. - - - - - - - - - -The philosopher Kai Sørlander explains that when optimists don’t see any serious problem arising from mass immigration of people from alien cultures, this is partly because they assume that man by nature is good. To the pessimists — some would say realists — man by nature isn’t good, he is combative, and has the potential to do both good and evil. Cultural education is necessary to bring out his good qualities and suppress his potential for evil. For the optimists, the pessimists appear to be dangerous because they do not believe in the goodness of man. However, Mr. Sørlander notes that where the optimists portray the pessimists as xenophobic and thus evil, the pessimists only makes the optimists naïve. The demonization is one-way.

It is indeed striking how venomous many Multiculturalists are whenever any Westerner stands up for his country. Oriana Fallaci was hated by parts of the Italian Left during the final years of her life. I have seen cartoons in Denmark depicting the leader of the Danish People’s Party, Pia Kjærsgaard, who has been pushing for stricter immigration policies, as a rat, a vulture etc. Years of such dehumanization will eventually lead to physical attacks. Pim Fortuyn in the Netherlands was murdered following similar treatment by the media.

The idea that human beings are by nature good leads to viewing criminals as suffering from some kind of disease that can be corrected by treatment. If a person does something bad, this is because he has suffered some form of “injustice.” The same logic is extended to Islamic terrorists.

The tabula rasa or “clean slate” view of humans has been shared by good men such John Locke. As a non-Christian, I too do not believe that human beings in general are born sinful. However, the idea can be dangerous if combined with massive state indoctrination.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau said that: “The state should be capable of transforming every individual into part of the greater whole from which he, in a manner, gets his life and being; of altering man’s constitution for the purpose of strengthening it. [It should be able] to take from the man his own resources and give him instead new ones alien to him and incapable of being made use of without the help of others. The more completely these inherited resources are annihilated, the greater and more lasting are those which he acquires.”

It is this lethal cocktail of the “noble savage” idea and state indoctrination that led via Maximilien Robespierre to modern totalitarian states. I believe the contradiction between Leftists not viewing terrorists as evil, but considering ideological opponents to be evil, can be explained if we postulate that they think that criminals haven’t received proper ideological guidance, whereas political opponents have rejected their ideological indoctrination and are thus considered a threat.

According to Paul Gottfried and his book The Strange Death of Marxism, the so-called cultural Marxism of Antonio Gramsci and others means the death of Marxism, because Marxism is an economic theory. Paul Belien of the Brussels Journal disagrees and thinks that we should call it “the transformation of Marxism.” Personally, I agree with Belien, and believe there is still enough shared DNA to label it Marxism, although I do recognize that there have been some mutations.

Critics state that there is no centralized conspiracy pushing Gramscian views ahead. No, but we should think of it as the Leftist version of Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” described in The Wealth of Nations: It’s a spontaneous cooperation between various groups with a shared goal. As examples, the display of the national flag has been denounced as “xenophobic” in Sweden and the United States, Australia and the Netherlands. Was this part of a grand, centralized conspiracy, a Gramscintern? No. But that doesn’t change the fact that the end results were remarkably similar.

Political Correctness, of which Multiculturalism is a core component, has many of the hallmarks of a totalitarian ideology: ideological punishment for newly invented crimes, which creates a climate of fear, public propaganda campaigns as well as a gross perversion of language. Research and media coverage are tailored to suit the ruling ideology, inappropriate questions are not asked, “wrong” answers are suppressed. Since the ideology is logically incoherent, it can only be enforced through repressive means: We’re supposed to celebrate our differences at the same time as it is taboo to say that any differences exist.

Like all totalitarian ideologies, Multiculturalism needs a Villain Class, a group of evil oppressors that can be blamed for all the ills of society. If the ruling ideology falls somewhat short of producing the Perfect Society it has promised, this will be followed by even more passionate attacks on the Villain Class, be that the Jews, the capitalists, the bourgeoisie, etc. The Villain Class of Multiculturalism seems to be white people and Western culture. Any problems will automatically be blamed on “white racism,” which will ensue more state enforced “equality” and suppression of free speech.

According to columnist Leo McKinstry, the white working class is the one ethnic group that it is perfectly acceptable to insult. In his book The Likes of Us: A History of the White Working Class, author Michael Collins recalled coming across a municipal leaflet in a library in south London, listing every group that had settled in the borough, including Afro-Caribbeans, Somalians and Ethiopians. As he read this, Collins sensed an elderly white man looking over his shoulder. “They don’t mention us English. You wouldn’t think we existed, would you?”

Education Secretary Alan Johnson from the British Labour Party has stated that children will be taught race relations and multiculturalism with every subject. In science, key Muslim contributions such algebra will be emphasized to counter Islamophobia. Pupils could also be tested on their attitudes to diversity. Tory MP Douglas Carswell warned that schools would become vehicles for left-wing propaganda and classrooms turned into “laboratories for politically-correct thought.”

This was due to recommendations by former headmaster Sir Keith Ajegbo. Ajegbo also said that resources need to be put into providing education about the benefits of diversity to white pupils, citing an example of a white pupil who, after hearing in a lesson that other members of her class originally came from the Congo, Trinidad and Poland, said that she “came from nowhere.”

But since the goal of Multiculturalism is not just to demographically and culturally eradicate Western civilization, but to erase any memory that it has ever existed, when this English pupil says she comes from nowhere, she is merely parroting what her education system tells her.

According to the West Indian writer V. S. Naipaul, “[Islam] has had a calamitous effect on converted peoples. To be converted you have to destroy your past, destroy your history. You have to stamp on it, you have to say ‘my ancestral culture does not exist, it doesn’t matter.’” It is striking to notice that this is exactly what is going on in the West. When Muslims enter our lands, they thus discover that much of their work has already been done for them by Western Multiculturalists.

What’s really amazing is that the people who do this get away with claiming to have a monopoly on good. I believe it’s because they claim to champion “equality,” and if they champion equality, this means that everybody who disagrees with them champions inequality, which is almost the same as racism and discrimination. As Observer columnist Nick Cohen writes, “To be good you had to be on the left.” The problem is, as Hayek has so eloquently pointed out, there’s a world of difference between equality and equality before the law, since absolute equality in all walks of life can only be enforced by a government with totalitarian powers.

In Norway, Government Minister Karita Bekkemellem says that female directors must make up at least 40 percent of all new shareholder-owned companies’ boards of directors. “This is all about sharing power and influence and it is intervention in private ownership, but it was overdue.” Violation of the new rules will be penalized with forced dissolution of the company.

We now get enforced quotas between the sexes, and among various ethnic, religious and racial groups, an idea so radical that it was abandoned even in Communist dictatorships. Communism, the idea of forced economic equality, has been replaced by Multiculturalism, the idea of forced cultural, religious, racial and gender equality. As a result, the supposedly prosperous and free West will end up being decidedly less prosperous and significantly less free.

The next step in the equality drive will lead to extend human rights to animals. According to author Joan Dunayer, “It’s speciesist to deny anyone equal consideration either because they aren’t human or because they aren’t human-like. Nonspeciesists advocate equally strong basic rights—for example, to life and liberty—for all sentient beings. Just as the concepts of sexism and racism have been vitally important to advancing human rights, the concept of speciesism is vitally important to advancing nonhuman rights.”

The Dutch Party for Animals, PvdD, has forbidden the laying of poison to deal with a mouse infestation in its parliamentary offices. Its leader Marianne Thieme says, “Should there ever be a mouse plague, we would wish to combat it using traps that keep the mice alive.”

According to David Green’s bookWe’re (Nearly) All Victims Now!, victimhood is sought after because of the advantages it brings: “Group self-interest includes not only material benefits but also emotional pleasures such as righteous indignation and exerting power over others. Demands to be able to subject opponents to police action are perhaps the strongest examples of the latter.” The victim is the sole judge of when language is offensive.

The “oppressed” groups constantly change the words that are deemed offensive. That way they can keep potential offenders on their toes, always afraid of uttering, or even thinking, a word that could be deemed insensitive. This is combined with a culture where the most important thing is whether what you do “feels” good. According to writer Mikael Jalving, we have become “seduced” by goodness. He warns that we have to be judged according to the result of our actions, not their intentions, and that a precondition for freedom is the exercise of power. It is tempting to add that this emotional culture is a result of the excessive feminization of society. Everything that smacks of traditional masculinity, such as enforcing rules by force, is viewed as “Fascist.” Tolerance has become a goodness dope, an extension of our pleasure seeking culture, just another drug intended to make you feel good about yourself.

I have heard non-Europeans say that the ongoing colonization by immigration of Western Europe is a fitting punishment for the colonial era. It’s called karma in Eastern religions. However, Norway, which never had a colonial history, has immigrants from all over the world. The Netherlands had colonies in Indonesia, but there is not now a majority of people of Dutch descent in major Indonesian cities, whereas native Dutch will soon be a minority in most of their cities. It is also difficult to see what Moroccans, a large immigrant group in Holland, have to do with Dutch colonial history. The Germans were a colonial power in places such as Namibia. It is unclear why they should have an obligation to accept millions of Turks because of this.

The truth is that there is frequently no direct correlation between past colonial history and present mass immigration. Europeans have a right to resist colonization, too. There is no other place in the world where the indigenous population are supposed to celebrate their own colonization and get punished by their government if they fail to comply with this.

The waves of migration that the Western world is faced with now are far, far greater in scope and speed than those who brought down the Roman Empire. At least 2.2 million migrants will arrive in the West every year until 2050, according to a United Nations report from March 2007. The world’s population could reach 9.2 billions.

It is striking that it appears to be taken for granted by the UN that we will sit back, bleed to death and accept all these millions to flood our countries. It is presented like a natural disaster, as if the massive population growth cannot be stopped by the nations in question, and the ensuing migration cannot be limited by Western countries. But both these assumptions are wrong. Westerners should not and cannot take responsibility for billions of people in other parts of the world. They will have to limit their population growth to a sustainable level. We have already accepted more immigration peacefully than any other society has done in human history.

There is a significant element of blackmail here. I remember a group of African leaders telling the European Union that they needed to get huge amounts of money to limit mass migration from their countries, which is indirectly an admission that they can control this if they want to.

Many Westerners watch with resigned fatalism as we are told by our leaders and our media that this is “inevitable.” But nothing is inevitable. Our societies will collapse if this continues, yet we are supposed to be quiet bystanders to our own demise. Right-wingers tell us that it will be “good for the economy,” and left-wingers attack us for “racism and discrimination” if we desire our continued existence.

They say that all ‘rich nations’ will face mass immigration. But, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore and even Malaysia are also rich nations. Immigration to those countries is close to zero. I think that immigration is matter of government policy and national will. If the will is there, you can have zero immigration or limited immigration. But there isn’t the will to do anything about immigration in the West. Instead they sit and wring their hands. (…) If there was ever a picture of a society that has been completely finished, this is it. You don’t have to discriminate on racial grounds or religious grounds, just reduce the annual quota to 1000 or 10000. Nothing illiberal about that. But they cannot contemplate even that! Westerners amuse me. Even the worst cowards in the so-called ‘third world’ have more spine than this.

We seem to have lost our willpower. Why? Maybe some of those traits which previously used to be our greatest assets, such as our respect for women, for human rights, individual freedom and for openness to outsiders have been carried into such extremes that they have become liabilities. Perhaps even initially good ideas can turn bad if practiced without moderation. The key word, which we seem to have forgotten, is “balance.” According to a conservative Swedish friend of mine, many of the seemingly crazy excesses now on display are not so much a perversion of Western civilization as a fulfilment of it. What has happened is that Westerners have carried many of the seeds of our culture into their theoretical (and extreme) limits. This has left us confused; we have fulfilled our civilizational mission, and don’t know what to do next.

Besides, when your entire world view is fundamentally out of tune with reality, you are bound to display some irrational behavior. Too many Westerners are still mentally stuck in an age when the West was globally dominant. Many left-wingers thus tend to explain the shortcomings of other regions of the world by Western oppression. Other groups believe we have near unlimited resources, that we are invulnerable and can absorb any number of immigrants to our countries.

But the West’s dominant position is not just coming to a certain end, it ended a while ago. We shouldn’t think of this as “decline,” rather as a return to normality and as an opportunity for a return to Western sanity. If it is true that some left-wingers attack us for being a “global oppressive class,” it is conceivable that their most aggressive anti-Western behavior will subside once it becomes apparent to everybody that the West simply isn’t powerful enough to oppress the rest of the world.

Western civilization has been the first civilization in human history whose influence has penetrated every single corner of the planet, from Greenland to New Zealand. That a single civilization has been so globally dominant is unprecedented, and may never happen again. Besides, critics are probably right that it is immoral for a minority to run so much of global affairs.

We may at best retain a position as a first among equals. However, even this is far from certain. We live in a world demographically — and perhaps soon economically — dominated by Asia. Russians look after Russian interests, Chinese after Chinese interests, Indians after Indian interests, etc. Only Westerners are still supposed to worry about global interests. We should stop trying to save others and start saving ourselves, while we still can.. Only by letting go of illusions of hegemony can we regain our sanity. The sooner we realize that, the better are our chances. We should use this situation as an opportunity to regenerate and define a new civilizational mission dedicated to our own survival. If cultural confusion and a lack of hope for the future is a primary cause of our low birth rates, it is likely that a new sense of cultural confidence will lead to a significant rise in the same birth rates.

The battle for Western hegemony is already over. The battle for Western survival is about to begin.

Humpty Dumpty is definitely the master of official European Union public discourse. As I mentioned in my previous post, words — in the service of multicultural ideals — have assumed a new fluidity and flexibility in Brussels.

And now Humpty Dumpty has taken on a new job as the official translator of EU documents. This is from an article in the BBC:

EU effusion ‘lost in translation’

Sharp-eyed professors have spotted what they say is evidence of “political translation” of the EU’s Berlin Declaration, agreed at the weekend.

Both the Danish and English versions downplay the emotional language of the original German, they say.

Instead of saying that the EU member states are united in “happiness”, they say that they have united “for the better”, or “for the best”.

An EU spokesman said the texts had been agreed by the national governments.

“We, the citizens in the European Union, are united zu unserem Gluck “, the German-language version of the declaration reads. The phrase can be rendered in English as “united in our fortune/happiness”.

By contrast, the English-language version reads: “We, the citizens of the European Union, have united for the better”.

While in the Danish version, the word “Gluck” has been replaced with “‘vor faelles bedste” meaning “for the best”.

Gushing terms

Professor Henning Koch from Copenhagen University told the Danish paper Politiken the low-key translation could be no coincidence.

“It would come as a big surprise to me if the translators are bad at German. So then it’s a political translation,” he said.

It’s no secret that public opinion in Britain and Denmark is, at best, tepid about the European experiment. The French voted non to the EU Constitution as well — I wonder what their translation looks like…?

Professor Rudinger Gorner, head of the German department at Queen Mary, University of London… said there was also a subtle difference in that the English version “suggests something happening in the future”.

“Yet again, it’s an attempt on this side to downplay things wherever possible.”

We all know that Europe is descending into a sort of politically correct mass insanity. That’s been evident for quite a while.

This morning a reader in Britain has brought to our attention an article from today’s online Telegraph which demonstrates that the slide into multicultural madness is in fact accelerating.

First, the note from our reader. She says, in part:

Essentially, the EU has issued a diktat that the words “Islam,” “jihad,” and “terrorism” are not to be used in news coverage together and that terrorists should be referred to as “abusing Islam.”

I had personal experience of this two days ago when my comments (and the entire page full of comments) on Islam were removed from a news article in the Telegraph. That was the first time in my experience of that paper in my decades’ worth of reading and writing to the paper which has published both my Letters and comments several times, usually on Islam.

It is a very dire turning point for Europe. I think your readers should know of this…

I read the latest report of the religious freedom act. I think that reporter is naive. The danger is real, everywhere. If people are kept ignorant of the core and evil doctrines of Islam, they will not be able to appreciate that Islam is antithetical, in every respect, to our beliefs, values and laws, as Americans and as predominantly Judaeo-Christians. (Lest you think I am too intense on that last reference, we have several Hindu friends, my husband’s family having served in India during the Raj, and for decades we have been warned by them that it was sheer madness on the British part to allow Moslems into Britain in such numbers. They are having huge problems in India now with Moslems. Not for nothing was it called the Hindu Kush — slaughter of the Hindus. You may also find it interesting that these same Hindu friends, whose accents and vocabulary are a joy to hear, have said to us frequently that “You British will never rule anywhere, again, least of all over yourselves — because you have lost your love of the English language.”)

An EU official said that the secret guidebook, or, “common lexicon”, is aimed at preventing the distortion of the Muslim faith and the alienation of Muslims in Europe.

This is truly Newspeak, to call a manual of guidelines for censorship a “common lexicon”.

“The common lexicon includes guidance on a number of frequently used terms where lack of care by EU and member states’ spokespeople may give rise to misunderstandings,” he said.

“Careful usage of certain terms is not about empty political correctness but stems from astute awareness of the EU’s interests in the fight against terrorism.

“Terrorists exploit and augment suspicions.”

Aha! Now I understand the solution. If we quit being suspicious, the terrorists will stop bombing and beheading us. That’s only common sense, right?

“Ahmed! Defuse that bomb. The kuffar are no longer suspicious. Now at last we can forget about jihad!”

Details on the contents of the lexicon remain secret, but British officials stressed that it is there as a helpful aid “providing context” for civil servants making speeches or giving press conferences.

“We are fully signed up to this, but it is not binding,” said one.

The guidelines are secret. Why are they secret? Surely the enlightened European populace is in broad support of their leaders’ efforts…?

I feel compelled to quote Catch-22 again:

“They don’t have to show us Catch-22,” the old woman answered. “The law says they don’t have to.”

“What law says they don’t have to?”

“Catch-22.”

Not everyone has lost his mind, however:

However, Conservative MEP Syed Kamall hit out at the lexicon. “It is this kind of political correctness and secrecy that creates resentment among both the mainstream in Europe and in Islam,” he said.

Meanwhile, UK Independence Party MEP Gerard Batten claimed that the EU was in denial over the true roots of terrorism.

“This type of newspeak shows that the EU refuses to face reality,” he said. “The major world terrorist threat is one posed by ideology and that ideology is inspired by fundamentalist jihadi Islam.”

Notice that one of the voices of reason quoted above is — based on his name — “a brown person”. One of those multicultural chaps. What’s wrong with him? Why doesn’t he get with the programme?

This whole fiasco is so absurd, so ludicrous, that it would be laughable if the stakes weren’t so high. People are actually going to die because of the EU’s lunatic policies. Dozens, hundreds, thousands — who knows? But real people will eventually lose their lives because of this tendentious nonsense.

The soft-spoken and well-dressed inmates are now in charge of the EU asylum.

Thursday, March 29, 2007

He has written a lengthy and informative report, “The Kansas City First Freedom Seminar, or How I Stopped the Jihad”. I’ll just excerpt a few pieces of it here.

I did in fact attend the event. As a result, you will have noticed, the US was not transformed today into a brutal Islamic dictatorship writhing in the vice-like grip of Shar’i’a law.

So, clearly, I succeeded.

A brief note before a somewhat snarky post: I do in fact regard the global Islamist movement, and the attempts by some western nations to accomodate it, as a substantial threat to western liberty; Brad and Adam will be familiar with my ravings at another site regarding the affair of the Jyllands-Posten cartoons. I did, however, enter this event somewhat skeptical of the thesis that Alberto Gonzales’s cabinet department was being overrun by advocates of submission to Allah’s will, and none of what I saw today changed my mind. The DOJ representatives present were all well-informed on the issues and seemed considerably more interested in informing the audience about the details of civil rights law pertaining to religious practice than in advocating any kind of agenda regarding reform of the law. Indeed, when invited specifically to comment upon the hate crimes legislation currently before Congress, the panel declined in toto to express an opinion. As Eric Treene, the DOJ’s Special Counsel for Religious Discrimination commented, “we’re attorneys in law enforcement and do not comment on pending legislation.”

He seems to think we were overreacting in our alarm about this seminar, and perhaps we were. But it’s always better to be too alarmed than not alarmed enough!

There have been concerns expressed in a variety of fora (including the GoV link above) that agencies such as the Council of American-Islamic Relations have been attempting to coopt the First Freedom agenda in order to cast aspersions upon legitimate criticisms of Islam. I have to say that I saw very, very little indication of that. The closest instance came near the end of the presentation, when a group of DOJ community relations specialist distributed a “Quiz on Muslims and Islam” authored by the Sikh Mediawatch and Resource Task Force (now known as SALDEF.) As an educator, it’s not hard for me to identify when a “quiz” is intended to re-educate its takers about a subject, and this was certainly such a quiz. As re-education efforts go, though, this was not a particularly pernicious one. I don’t think that pointing out, for instance, that Indonesia is the largest Muslim nation, can be considered to be part of an effort to force Americans to accomodate a radical Islamic agenda. The entire enterprise came off as more patronizing than misleading. Nor, to my knowledge, is SALDEF an organization that makes excuses for terrorist actions, as could be said of CAIR. In fact, I’d argue that Sikhs have had it pretty rough since 9/11, as they are among the most easily identifiable practicitioners of Islam, yet practice a school of thought that is specifically divorced from Wahabi ideology and which is historically no more inclined to terrorist tactics than any Christian denomination you’d care to name (the Indira Gandhi business being a prominent but atypical example).

Just a minor correction here: the Sikh religion is not a form of Islam; it is a reaction to Islam, a response of the indigenous population of the Indian subcontinent to the Moghul conquests.- - - - - - - - - -

Another complaint that has been raised regarding the “First Freedom” project is that it seems to subordinate speech rights to those of religious practice; the tone of the discussion in the blogosphere suggests concern that this might indicate a trend to criminalize criticism of religion. To some extent the rhetoric of the First Freedom folks has lent credence to this concern; the opening remarks of Mr. Treene dwelt uncomfortably on the point that the framers of the constitution chose to list freedom of religious practice BEFORE the freedom of speech when writing the first amendment (hence “First Freedom”). When this point came into question, however-by a bearded, emphatic, Madison-quoting audience member who bore a stunning resemblence to former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop-the panel was quick to clarify that the “first” designation was for rhetorical purposes only.

Be that as it may, the DOJ’s expressed positions on the issues discussed did at times strike me as potentially dangerous to speech…

What was particularly interesting was Kappelhoff’s discussion of federalism concerns related to hate-crimes legislation. In discussion of the Church Arson Prevention Act (18 USC 247), Kappelhoff acknowledged that the act explicitly required that the offenses in question have an affect on interstate commerce. In his words, however, DOJ attorneys “have become very creative in our ways of establishing an affect on interstate commerce” in order to justify their prosecutions. I am not comforted by the idea that federal prosecutors consider it part of their job to make end-runs around the written intent of the legislation they are asked to enforce, particularly when the effort is a deliberate attempt to federalize what might legitimately be considered a state issue. I am still less comforted by the fact that said attorneys take pride in celebrating this practice at public seminars. One need not sympathize with hate groups to feel uncomfortable about the prospect of the government’s prosecutorial tactics coming untethered from the law.

Exactly.

Apparently, I was not alone in my concern with the strident tone of the government’s representatives regarding hate crimes. When commenter Bev Ehlen expressed the concern that “we should prosecute the crime itself, not the motive,” she recieved loud applause throughout the room. It should be noted that the panelists themselves were quick to agree with her sentiment. It may well be that the somewhat heated rhetoric of the attorneys in question is not indicative of their approach to prosecution. We should hope so.

But Rojas is sanguine about the overall thrust of the DOJ’s efforts:

On the whole, and despite the concerns listed above, I came away with the impression that the First Freedom project is on balance a pretty good idea; certainly it isn’t some kind of fifth column for madcap Islamism. In fact, I’m inclined to think that more liberals than conservatives would object; the whole process struck me as an attempt to expand appreciation for the free exercise clause of the first amendment, which is generally something of which conservatives tend to approve.

If that’s all that it is, then I will withdraw my alarm, and rest content with the efforts of our Department of Justice.

Be that as it may, though: I want it noted that when Kansas City needed counterjihad volunteers, it was ME that stemmed the advancing tide, damnit. The way I figure it, that makes me the new Charles Martel.

The Swedish Security Service (Säkerhetspolisen) launched a very slick, professional-looking new website on March 26th, with an English-language version as well as a Swedish one. If you go to the publications page and follow the links, you’ll find a series of pdf documents on various topics.

The latest annual report for the Security Service is from 2005, and can be found in pdf format here. It’s an expensively-produced and visually appealing PR sheet, but it’s also an interesting read.

As you would expect — it is Sweden, after all — there’s a lot of emphasis on the dangers from right-wing nationalist and crypto-fascist groups. But the report also talks about left-wing extremists and other security threats against Sweden.

The most interesting thing, however, is what Swedish Security has to say about Islamic terrorism:- - - - - - - - - -

Low level of threat but increased risk of terrorist attacks

The overall level of threat against Sweden is low. There is, however, an increased risk of terror attacks, mainly as concerns foreign interests in Sweden. The intelligence threat from certain foreign powers remains, although, in later years, focus has shifted from military issues to politics and technology. The threat posed by domestic political extremist groups is low, although the tendency towards an escalation of violence is alarming.

New terrorist networks are difficult to detect

The risk of a large terrorist attack in Sweden is limited, whereas the risk of attacks against certain foreign interests in Sweden has increased. There is also a risk that terrorists and their sympathisers conduct supporting activities in Sweden. This threat is posed mainly by Islamist extremist groups.

The Islamist motivated terrorism is currently going through a phase of decentralisation. Up until 11 September 2001, it was characterised by a global and relatively interrelated network structure. Today, it largely consists of regional and more or less independent networks, which makes the work of the security services more difficult. Moreover, there is a clear and dangerous radicalisation in some Islamist circles in Europe as well as in Sweden. There are also persons in Sweden who in various ways support acts of terrorism in other countries, for instance through financing,

Intelligence activities in Sweden

We know that Sweden and Swedish interests are the targets of ongoing intelligence activities. This gathering of intelligence mainly focuses on political issues and advanced technology, including defence technology, The actors engaging in this type of activity in Sweden do so on a broad scale, and work systematically.

The developments in the world, and above all the increased terrorist threat, have entailed a greater need for intelligence. In many countries, intelligence services have been accorded more resources and a broader mandate. In the long run, this may result in more foreign intelligence actors being tempted to conduct illegal operations in Sweden.

It’s encouraging not only that Swedish intelligence is monitoring the Islamist groups, but that it is also willing to discuss the issue publicly. There’s no prescription for solutions — the security service has nothing to say about the decline in the numbers of native Swedes, the population explosion of unemployed and criminal immigrant groups in Sweden’s cities, or the suffocating blanket of multiculturalism and socialism that makes the whole mess possible.

But at least they’re watching it, and talking about it.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The pdf document linked here was locked for copying, which was very annoying. I had to print the thing and then scan the pages I wanted and run them through the OCR in order to get a working text to quote here.

More and more pdfs seemed to be locked this way. I’m not sure of the purpose — anybody can print and copy the thing, as long as it’s not locked for printing as well.

Maybe they want to discourage people from copying, so that only the dedicated blogging zealot will go to the trouble of posting the text. Good thing I’m a dedicated blogging zealot…

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

The event is called “A First Freedom Project Seminar: Federal Laws Protecting Religious Freedom”. Under that harmless-sounding title, the Department of Justice is providing the opportunity for Muslim groups like ISNA and MPAC to lobby successfully for more stringent anti-profiling legislation and increased federal regulation limiting “hate speech” — i.e., they are putting a bull’s-eye on our First Amendment right to free speech, all in the name of “respect for religion”.

We need volunteers from Kanas City and the Missouri suburban areas to attend this meeting to help counterbalance the Islamist tilt. See my earlier post for more details.

Regular readers know that I have recently become enamored of Holger Danske.

For latecomers: Holger Danske — a.k.a. Holger the Dane — was a semi-mythical Danish hero. He fought against Charles Martel in the early part of the 8th century, but overlooked his differences with the Franks in order to journey south and fight alongside Charles the Hammer in his successful battle against the Saracens.

The Islamic threat from al-Andalus meant more to Holger than his quarrels with his Frankish neighbors, and so he became a hero of the Western World at Poitiers in 732.

That part of his story is recorded in history, but now we come to the myth. According to legend, Holger retired to the old Kronborg castle and entered a twilight sleep in one of its cellars, to awaken only when he was needed by Denmark. Hans Christian Andersen tells the tale:

But the fairest sight of all is the old castle of Kronborg, and under it sits Holger Danske in the deep, dark cellar which no one enters; he is clad in iron and steel and rests his head on his stalwart arm; his long beard hangs down upon the marble table where it has become stuck fast; he sleeps and dreams, but in his dreams he sees everything that comes to pass in Denmark. Every Christmas Eve an angel of God comes to tell him that all he has dreamed is true, and that he may go to back to sleep again, for Denmark is not yet in any danger! but if it should ever come, then old Holger Danske will rouse himself, and the table will break apart as he pulls out his beard! Then he will come forth, and strike a blow that shall be heard throughout all the countries of the world.

As a non-Danish person who only recently learned about Holger’s story, I find him very inspiring, an apt symbol for the dire times ahead.

But not everyone agrees with me. A Danish reader recently sent me an email, part of which is excerpted below:

Dear Baron,

I apologize for not having replied to your latest email. I have some doubts about the use of nationalist imagery such as “Holger Danske,” I believe it causes great damage to the “cause,” which is making counterjihad a mainstream issue. I believe the approach of e.g. Robert Spencer and Lars Hedegaard is far more constructive and likely to gain results.

I wrote him back:

I understand your reservations, and I respect them.

The funny thing is, I don’t find Holger Danske to be a nationalist symbol (though, obviously, the Danes consider him to be one). To me, he is the spirit of the West, a spirit which is awakening in its hour of need, and anyone who cherishes the values of liberty and self-determination can claim Holger as their own.

He’s like the Statue of Liberty. Do you remember the demonstrators in Tinananmen Square in 1989, who built a replica of the Statue of Liberty? They didn’t consider it to be a nationalist symbol of the USA, but used it as an icon representing their struggle for freedom.

And so it is with Holger, who put aside his differences with Charles the Hammer to journey southwards and fight alongside his former enemy against the Saracens in 732.

Holger Danske is a worthy symbol for all of us, and I am happy to have learned about him.

But I don’t blame you for being nervous about him — the recent history of nationalism in Europe has not been pleasant.

One is certainly loath to rouse the ghost of European nationalism. We’ve seen enough of that particular shade to last us several lifetimes.

But why does Holger have to be an exclusively Danish symbol? Why can’t the West claim him as its own, the way the Tiananmen demostrators claimed Lady Liberty?

In researching the images for this post, I wandered into an archive of Tiananmen photos from 1989. It’s been almost eighteen years, but looking at those photographs made it feel like just the other day.

Remember all those inspiring photos on the front pages of the newspapers? The crowds of youthful demonstrators with their signs and their zeal for liberty — it seemed as though China would follow the Soviet Union along the path of reform and glasnost.

But it was not to be. The tanks came in, the movement was crushed, and the Western democracies could only express “grave concern” and then resume business as usual after the appropriate interval of diapproval.- - - - - - - - - -Watching Tinananmen Square in 1989 was like seeing the tanks stop before they rolled on to Baghdad in 1991, or being a spectator to those American soldiers who were dragged through the streets of Mogadishu in 1993. It was something one had to endure; it was necessary for the sake of Realpolitik; but it wasn’t right.

And remember how all those Tiananmen photos stopped after June 4th, 1989? A couple of long-distance views of tanks rolling into the square among the demonstrators, and then that was it. A little outrage here and there, some negative editorials in the Western media, and then down the memory hole with the whole affair. Commerce and diplomacy resumed shortly afterwards.

There were stories of hundreds or thousands of dead students, and of the survivors who were hauled off to the laogai, never to be seen again. But as far as the authoritative media were concerned, those were scarcely more than rumors. Uncorroborated and undocumented.

But they weren’t. That’s what I found out when I encountered the Tiananmen archives. Thanks to the miracle of the internet, all that information is available to anyone who wants to look for it.

None of the more disturbing photos are reproduced here, but the horrors of those few days in June of 1989 are well-documented, as is Auschwitz. They carry a similar impact — all those youngsters, filled with a zeal for liberty, and the horrific and bestial things that were done to them!

Follow the link at your own risk.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The demonstrators at Tiananmen Square took up Lady Liberty as their symbol. They didn’t think of her as an American nationalist symbol, an icon of United States imperialism. Why should they? She stood for what they didn’t have — the right to speak freely, to live their lives according to their own consciences, and not according to the whims of the Socialist State. They knew that America represented those rights, however imperfectly realized.

Why can’t Holger take on the same universality? Why should the Danes claim sole proprietary rights to such an inspiring figure?

Lady Liberty symbolized freedom to the doomed youth of Tiananmen.

To us, to the besieged people of Western Civilization, Holger Danske represents resistance, the newly awakened spirit that stirs in us when we are threatened by the Demonic Convergence of socialism, nihilistic postmodernism, and Islamic fascism.

Holger is not just the avatar of the Danes, or even of the Men of the North. He stands for the West. He is the defender of what we hold dear, of what we have all but forgotten how to fight for.

He is the equivalent of Aragorn at the Black Gate of Mordor shouting, “I bid you stand, Men of the West!”

He stands alongside Charles Martel in 732, and Jan III Sobieski, the savior of Europe at Vienna in 1683. Martel does not belong to the French, nor does Sobieski belong to the Poles. They belong to all of us.

And so does Holger Danske. He is Holger, Vestens Vogter: Holger, the Guardian of the West.

David Hicks, the Australian convert to Islam currently residing in Guantanamo, has pleaded guilty to “providing material support for terrorism.”

The 31-year-old Muslim convert, arrived at Guantanamo in early 2002, a month after being captured in Afghanistan in December 2001. He admitted that he had supplied material support to the al-Qaeda terrorist network.

[…]

Hicks was accused of having completed al-Qaeda training courses and fighting against American forces and its allies in Afghanistan.

Since he has admitted his guilt - his obvious, undoubted guilt - he is being allowed to return to Australia, where he will likely serve a lighter sentence than the court at Guantanamo imposed.

His family is complaining about his mistreatment, but as you can see from the picture of Mr. Hicks, he is a terrorist. So he had to grow his hair long in order to cover his face because of the lights in his cell being on all the time? What a shame.

Those American soldiers he killed now lie in eternal darkness but we’re supposed to feel sorry for this creep because they left the lights on to prevent suicide attempts. I have no sympathy at all for a man who turns on his own heritage and begins killing people in the name of a murderous ideology.

- - - - - - - - - -If he is spared the death sentence, then he failed to get what he was so willing to dish out to others. And if Daddy is upset because Sonny doesn’t look well, whose fault is that? Oh, right: the Imperialist Americans.

So he goes back to Australia to serve his [shortened] sentence. What do you suppose happens after he is released from prison in Australia? Will his fellow Aussies welcome him with open arms?

Of course Amnesty International , your fair and balanced human rights group, has its own opinion of this horrible affair:

Human rights group Amnesty International has condemned the tribunals as “shabby show trials” and demanded that detainees be tried under the regular US judicial system.

See that foot under the tent? We’re supposed to apply the rules of the US judicial system to foreign terrorists.

Justice? Those are suicidal terms. Oh, I forgot: Amnesty International’s fondest hope is to live in a world without America.

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Bernie at Planck’s Constant has tagged us with a meme — a meme which comes with its own built-in award. That is, should you get tagged, you are also dubbed with a little icon which announces that you have won a “Thinking Blogger” prize. The meme started here, and showing its point of origin is interesting since it allows one to see, at least partially, how it spreads.

Of course, the catch to this, and to all memes, is that you have to notify the bloggers you tag. ’Tis only courteous to let them know why they are suddenly getting hits from your site.

But for me, there’s a larger problem: I always feel obligated to write a short follow-up post on each of the bloggers I am “meme-ing” so that our readers know a bit about them. But given both my ADD and like, man, my totally unpredictable energy levels, I never manage to finish posting the list. It’s depressing, like totally, dude (sorry, I’ve been hanging out with a teenager and have picked up a verbal tic).

If anyone had ever tagged me with that ancient meme called “Five Things You Don’t Know about Me” (and Were Afraid I Would Tell You), my tendency to being a tad obsessive-compulsive would be in that list. Do you know what a lethal combination ADD and being obsessive — i.e., a perfectionist — is for the person who gets those two cards in the draw? It means you cannot attend long enough to any one particular task to accomplish all the things that you know need to be done.

[The Baron says I should have stamped on my forehead (backwards, of course, so I could see it in the mirror) a big sign that reads “You Don’t Have To Do EVERY Good Thing You Think Of.” All of us busybodies need one of those. And maybe little doilies with that message embroidered on them. Or t-shirts. Or coffee cups… See, here’s another good thing I could do, but will I ever remember to contact Café Press…? I don’t think so.]

There’s another, and more important reason that I don’t want to do this meme. How does one choose five smart blogs to put on the list? Already our blogroll on the sidebar overflows with smart, funny, thinking people. If they weren’t thinkers, they wouldn’t be there. What?? You think we link to schmucks?

So I am declining Bernie’s meme, for reasons of self-preservation. I realize this is not the proper thing to do. One does not mention a meme and then refuse to join. A tad discourteous. But if Bernie saw my desk or the inside of my refrigerator, he’d forgive me.

By the way, Norm Geras — now there’s a real thinker for you — reports the UK Sunday Times technology section is claiming that blogging has jumped the shark. They’re on the decline, The Times says hopefully:- - - - - - - - - -

According to research by a firm of US technology analysts, the blogging phenomenon may have peaked last October, when 100,000 new blogs were being created every day. As well as personal diaries these included corporate, professional, celebrity and other specialist blogs.

Yet the Gartner research firm also concluded that the trend would level off in 2007, with perhaps 100m people still blogging worldwide. Other analysts predict that number will fall to 30m.

“A lot of people have been in and out of [blogging]”, said Daryl Plummer of Gartner. “Everyone thinks they have something to say until they’re put on stage and asked to say it.”

Yawn. Just one more hopeful MSM premature obituary. Just wait till the US elections heat up. More blogs will proliferate like desert flowers after a rain.

Blogs aren’t going away anymore than email did, or cell phones, or any other means of communication. I suppose it could be superseded by something better, the way the telegraph was, but I don’t see anything coming down the pike real soon.

Yes, blogs do come and go. But blogging in itself is here to stay. Sorry, journalists out there, but you have to share at least one of the baby spotlights with the competition in the corner.

Since I’m not up to Bernie’s call-out, instead I propose this to our readers: please feel free to name your Top Five Thinkers’ blogs. There are few rules…

No biggies. Suggesting someone who receives tons of traffic doesn’t introduce new information which is one of the reasons for memes. I have a number of small and medium blogs I try to visit as often as possible. Surely you have your own list of those, too; thinking places where you like to hang out, yet the blogger isn’t in the Top Thousand or so.

If you can’t find five, then three will do.

Blogs in English only, please. The majority of our readers speak or read only English. Besides, the Baron and I are ignorant monolinguals. And you know how American hubris goes: “WHAT?? You mean everyone doesn’t speak English?

And, of course, the main thing is thinkers not spouters.

Any subject is open — cooking, cats, or maybe bird-watching. Umm… no sites about “cooking cats” however, or Sissy Willis will hurt you. In fact, let’s limit it to PG-13 blogs — never can tell when the homeschoolers will drop by.

If people respond to this invitation in sufficient numbers, we’ll be able to see if a common thread runs through your responses. Thus, we end up with a Top Five list generated from the bottom up: by y’all, our readers, rather than by me with my limited, if somewhat perfervid imagination.

[Of course, if anyone nominates Neighborhood of God, I won’t complain. Conflict of interest? What conflict?]

A volunteer who calls himself Scandinavian Dissident has translated this article from the online version of Die Welt. It’s about the notorious incident in which a German judge who decided to apply Sharia to a case involving domestic violence and a Muslim woman.

The fact that the case received widespread publicity in Germany, and was greeted with almost universal condemnation, indicates that the situation in the heart of Eurabia is changing.

Where Tolerance Collides with Law and Order

The ruling of a female judge in Frankfurt, in a divorce case involving an abusive Muslim man, has caused indignation. However, this situation is no longer unique; in more and more cases there is a collision between cultural tolerance [multiculturalism] and law and order.

The regret that the Frankfurt Family Court judge Christa D. expressed afterwards doesn’t really make things any better. From the feminist Alice Schwarzer to the right-wing politician Wolfgang Bosbach, there’s a surprising unanimous indignation over the fact that a German judge, in all seriousness, justified rejecting the divorce petition of a German of Moroccan background by quoting a Surah from the Koran.

It’s hard to tell if it’s “clumsiness” or moral arrogance when the judge now tells a speaker from the District Court that she seriously “looked for a clarification in the Koran, and was proud that I found one, thus quoting Surah 4:34 as a source.” The Judge seemed unable to see that you could interpret this as trying to apply the Koran to German law. In the meantime she has been pulled from the case.

The district court says Mrs. D is embarrassed. The judge was in the headlines ten years earlier, when a man shot his ex-wife in the judge’s courtroom. Was her motive naked fear, the kind of panic that makes the head of the Berlin Opera Kirstin Harms to cancel a production of “Idomeneo” because she had received vague threats?

An individual case with no precedent

Lawyer and CDU [Christian Democratic Union] party head Volker Kauder explains that the incident “is an individual case, which cannot set a precedent for any other case.” However, this kind of opportunistic haste is a form of precedent itself. What you can see here is a foul mixture of self-hatred, lack of civil courage, and arrogance disguised as cultural sensitivity.

The examples are legion. When you look at honour killings, there have been some court decisions where a murder has become mere manslaughter, because the court takes into account “cultural characteristics.” “I started fighting against this in the eighties,” says Barbara John, former member of the Berlin Commission for Foreigners, “when cultural discounts were made. But there are also idiots among the judges.” Four years earlier the Federal High Court had to override the ruling of a court. A Turk living in Germany had his wife, who was looking for a divorce, stabbed to death. The regional court in Frankfurt sentenced him to thirteen and a half years.

Normally he would have gotten life in prison. In addition the perpetrator had acted out of base motives. The judge, however, didn’t want to exclude the idea that the perpetrator, due to his “Anatolian values,” had not been aware of the baseness of his motives.

Therefore the perpetrator was convicted of manslaughter, not murder. The case was moved to the Federal High Court, and a ruling came in April 2004: Foreigners living in Germany can be found guilty of murder due to base motives. German customs and laws regarding the relationship between men and women were explained to the perpetrator. On the other hand it was not said that the perpetrator had the right to “kill and abuse his wife in accordance to Anatolian values.” The Federal High Court instructed the regional court to re-assess its sentencing, to see whether or not it could still be a murder. A new ruling is still pending.- - - - - - - - - -The cartoon debate disgraced many news outlets

During the Mohammed cartoon controversy, many news organisations and publishers distanced themselves from the controversial caricatures and the decision to publish them — they did this to avoid hurting the feelings of the Muslims (some also did it because they found the caricatures to be tacky). An airline forbids its stewardesses from carrying crosses around their necks. A kindergarten in Bozen decides to stop singing Christmas Carols where Jesus is mentioned, because it could offend the predominantly Muslim children. The demand that Germany be the primary language in a secondary school is greeted with reproach and claims of “forced Germanisation.” One shouldn’t “pour gasoline on a fire” said Karl-Heinz Werner of the Mainz Carnival association: it would be absolutely idiotic to show Mohammed on one of the floats.

However, there’s no topic that causes so much anger and heated tempers as the relationship between men and women. In response to the petition that she be excused for partiality, the Family Court Judge Christa D. —astonishingly enough — responded, “The honour of the man according to the Koran is, to put it simply, is bound up strongly with the chastity of his wife, so strictly speaking a man with an Islamic education would view a woman who leads a life according to the norms of western culture as an obvious injury per se upon his honour.”

Mrs. D has overslept and completely missed recent developments in Morocco. At the behest of the King, family law in Morocco was completely reformed two years ago. The age of marriage was raised to 18. Abuse in marriage was made a crime. At last women in Morocco have a right to divorce, to have custody of their children, and to receive alimony.

Weakening of the German judicial system

Do we seriously want Morocco to overtake us from the left? The author of Emma, Alice Schwarzer, fears a weakening of the German judicial system: She pointed out numerous rulings in recent decades that acquitted perpetrators for reasons of “different customs” or because they were from a different “cultural area.” The judicial system has for a long time been infiltrated by Islamic forces. A judge who appoints herself to rule according to the Koran utters law in the name of Sharia, and not in the name of the Basic Law. She is no longer trying to be a German court.

Mina Ahadi, chairman of the newly created Central Council for Ex-Muslims says that the German judicial system is frequently too careless when it comes to such cases. At the Central Council of Muslims the ruling was also criticized. Their spokeswoman, Nurhan Soykan, explained that force and the abuse of human beings, regardless of their gender, are all valid Islamic reasons for seeking a divorce. A legal commentary by the Greens is also interesting: Bilkay Öney, the spokeswoman for immigration politics, explained: “The Koran’s Surah 4, verse 34, leaves much room for interpretation. The first interpretation of the verse was actually made by the prophet Mohammed who said ‘Do not strike women. Those who strike women are truly the worst of creatures.’ Respectable Imams do not preach the abuse of women. Even in countries with a predominantly Muslim population the Koran does not stand over the law — excluding countries where the Sharia code is used.” (Those are, unfortunately, all countries where Islam is part of the doctrine for the national government.)

Since the Islamic conference brought up the delicate topic of freedom of speech, it is not feasible anymore to rush ahead ignoring the majority in Germany. Now it is even illegal.